As part of the U.K.-U.S. Economic Prosperity Deal, struck between the Trump administration and Starmer\u2019s U.K. government, the U.K. granted Washington a new tariff-free quota of up to 1.4 billion liters of ethanol, which is used in farming and as a fuel source.<\/p>\n
Hackett said this is worth \u201cthe entire\u201d U.K. bioethanol market. Previously, U.S. ethanol imported into the U.K. faced tariffs ranging from 10 to 50 percent.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose tariffs are in place, not because we\u2019re worse at making ethanol than the U.S. \u2014 they use genetically modified corn, antibiotics, they have lower energy costs and they have tax subsidies from the government,\u201d explained Hackett. \u201cThe tariffs were just to say we wanted a level playing field.\u201d<\/p>\n
Britain\u2019s chemical industry, including multinational INEOS, the Chemical Business Association and px Group, are already urging the government to intervene, warning that the closure of Vivergo Fuel would not only put jobs at risk, but also billions in investment \u2014 as well as the country\u2019s long-term energy security.<\/p>\n
Last month, Vivergo signed a \u00a31.25 billion memorandum of understanding with Meld Energy to supply feedstock for a new sustainable aviation fuel plant at Saltend, Hull. Separately, it\u2019s planning a \u00a3250 million hydrogen production facility on the same site. \u201cIf we disappear, that goes because there\u2019s no-one to take the green hydrogen and there\u2019s no raw material to turn into aviation [fuel],\u201d warned Hackett.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re putting at risk a billion pound investment into the Saltend site,\u201d he said. \u201cHull is not the most economically advantaged part of the U.K. That billion pounds of investment would have added thousands more jobs. By taking away that bioethanol industry, you lose all future growth.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As part of the U.K.-U.S. Economic Prosperity Deal, struck between the Trump administration and Starmer\u2019s U.K. government, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2410,8728,8729,8730,141,1344,8731,8732,3360,59,57,58,2923,8733,555,420,8734,467,2363,50,8735,1351,8736,8737,156,474,426,56,54,158,55],"class_list":["post-12945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-aviation","tag-bioeconomy","tag-chemicals","tag-corn","tag-donald-trump","tag-energy","tag-energy-security","tag-ethanol","tag-fuels","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-growth","tag-hydrogen","tag-industry","tag-keir-starmer","tag-level-playing-field","tag-markets","tag-negotiations","tag-news","tag-raw-materials","tag-security","tag-supply-chains","tag-sustainable-aviation","tag-tariffs","tag-tax","tag-trade","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-states","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}